POLICY & REFORM campusreview. com. au
New year, new bill, same debate
Pyne has tweaked his deregulation package and sent it back to Parliament; but despite the changes, it’ s as controversial as ever.
Compiled by Antonia Maiolo
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, continues to negotiate with key cross-bench senators as his push for reform rolls into 2015. The revised bill – along with the government’ s associated advertising – will probably face another Senate inquiry when Parliament resumes in February.
Pyne, who did not respond to interview requests for this article, was forced to revise the bill after the Senate defeated plans to deregulate the sector late last year. Changes include amendments cross-benchers called for, including abandoning plans to charge higher interest on student loans and introducing a five-year interest rate pause on HECS debt for new parents staying at home.
“ Great reform takes time,” Pyne said when the old bill was defeated.“ The Senate will … be presented with another opportunity to secure a sustainable higher education sector and provide more choices and opportunities for students.”
Below, three stakeholders sound off on the changes, as well as the continuation of the reform debate.
‘ THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO PAY ITS BILLS’ Senator Kim Carr, shadow minister for higher education, research, innovation and industry“ As Pyne has asserted, the higher education bill now before the Parliament is 90 per cent the bill that the Senate rejected last year.
“ There is little to suggest that this deregulation package Mark 2 will experience a different fate to its predecessor, and despite all his bravado the minister knows this.
“ Mr Pyne has asserted that changing the bill prior to its reintroduction has enabled the government to avoid making higher education a double-dissolution trigger.
“ Nonetheless, the issue will be central to the next federal election, whenever it is held, for the policy remains essentially the same: deregulation of university fees leading to $ 100,000 degrees, and massive cuts to Commonwealth funding for universities.
“ These changes are unnecessary and, worse, they are fundamentally unjust. If they are implemented, the fair go that Australians rightly expect would disappear.
“ The public has made up its mind about the policy, and no amount of government duplicity or taxpayer-funded political advertising will change that.
“ The funding for focus groups and market research extends to the end of June, suggesting that another round of advertising will appear in the lead-up to the election.
“ But, just as the public’ s rejection of the higher education package is clear, [ there is no ] indication that key cross-bench senators will regard this bill any more favourably than they did the first one.
“ So in 2015 the government has a choice to make. It could listen to the Australian people and the vast majority of the Australian university community, and drop its unnecessary plans.
“ Or it could – as I sadly predict it will – continue its ideological crusade to undermine Australia’ s unique university system and the principles of justice that sustain it.
“ Labor believes the way forward is simple. The
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